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"How the Dragon Confused Language"
by Loren
9-13-2001

Once upon a time a long, long time ago there was a community of people all living across the most vast countryside that one could imagine. Even with the fastest horse it would take months to cross it from East to West. Enormous spruce trees grew by the ocean. The fishing was excellent. Every evening promised the most delectable sunset. A couple could drive from any of the cities in this vast country and within an hour or two find themselves surrounded by exquisite sights. Families traveled among the cities and met each other at the crossroads where they would stop and visit for a bite of cheese or a cup of wine. They loved to talk to one another and know the dreams of their neighbors. They traveled not out of necessity, but out of a driving curiosity to know all they could of their country and its people. They were insatiably curious. They did not move to seek out the better place to live, the greener spot of grass, they traveled because they felt compelled to experience their surroundings and were anxious to learn all that they could from those they would meet along the way. No one knows from where this ethic got its roots, but curiously, if one could for a moment take an omniscient perspective one would see that it was this traveling and curiosity that made them fruitful and provided them with the basis for a happy and free society. They shared knowledge because they reveled in conversation, but the end result was that they all benefited and lived more fruitful lives because of it.

During this time of intellectual humility all the people of this vast country, although they all spoke different tongues, were able to communicate effortlessly among one another. No one ever questioned if this should be so, it just was. Historians would later explain that is was in part because of their lingual independence in combination with their ability to effortlessly understand one another that they were so rich in collective knowledge. The differences in their language afforded each a somewhat different perspective on the world around them and consequently each group would discover practical, clever, and frequently beautiful solutions to life's challenges. Of course they shared the wealth. Perhaps this was the unconscious motivation for their frequent travels, to harvest that bounty of diversity.

Early one October morning a loud cry awoke nearly everyone in the vast country. Each individual person would have been shocked to learn that all of their compatriots throughout the vast country from leagues around all hear the cry. It was that loud! The winged beast had the dimensions of a cloud stretched across the horizon of the sky. He was that big! The tips of his spruce green wings shimmered with gold. His tail was long like a freight train. The silver-blue scales of his belly were each the size of a pond. His nostrils could have been tunnels through the mountain of his skull. Each crimson eye appeared to ripple like a great lake as he inspired and descended into the middle of that vast country.

According to legend, he surveyed the breadth of the country and at once decided upon what to do. The dragon had been asleep for 10 thousand thousand years. He knew that he would have to devour a goodly number of the countrymen to sustain himself for the next long sleep that he would begin only too soon. Of course being a Dragon he could not have articulated this thought to himself, but deep in his being he knew that this freedom to soar the skies above the vast and splendid country would be brief. He had to eat and he had to begin right away. Looking down at his wing tips resting on the tops of the hillsides that flanked him he saw the countrymen approaching from all around.

The countrymen were coming from all directions shouting instructions to one another. They were coming by the hundreds of thousands, like angry ants, seemingly able to sense one another's intentions so that they formed a strictly organized series of attack columns that surely would have been a match for even the mighty Dragon to handle by force of his own. The Dragon looked around him quizzically for a moment. Then he turned and deliberately reared back his head. The columns were halted and all the warriors began to take cover. The Dragon released a single breath like an ocean gale. The winds rushed through the entirety of the vast country in a matter of seconds. The people looked out from their hiding places afraid at what they might see, They were wet and disheveled, but not dead.

Each looked around himself and began to smile at the sight of their compatriots; each one of them healthy and almost smiling back. One shouted a cry of joy and then another and then another and then another and then one of the leaders shouted the command to charge and smite the Dragon once and finally. But no one moved. Then another shouted, Onward! Forward! Now is the time to attack! Charge! But no one moved. Impassioned pleas to advance and attack the dragon while he was recovering his breath were made throughout the ranks. But no one moved. Each could not understand the other. The Dragon had, with one mighty breath, confused their language. Once all grasped the gravity of the situation they fled in fear. The country men ran to in all directions trying to escape the Dragon's clutches, but many, many of them could not run fast enough.

Over the weeks and months after the Dragon confused their language small bands of people formed that could understand each other on some kind of elementary level. They communicated with grunts and outstretched fingers. They fed themselves on berries, roots and rodents. They each one remembered how the Dragon had devoured many of the countrymen and that only a minority had survived, but no one could talk through the pain because they found it impossible to understand each other.

Eventually the Dragon returned to his hibernation. In time, the people increased the size of their bands and made small civilizations for themselves where each new child learned the language that the group had developed. They took names for themselves like Hungary, Norway, Istanbul, England, Germany, and France. They survived in these isolated pockets of their vast country for thousands of years, but never again realized the prosperity they had known before the Dragon attacked, before they lost the ability to communicate.

Ten thousand thousand years later the Dragon awoke once more. He grinned an evil grin as he soared over the vast country observing that the people still had not learned to communicate with one another. He licked his lips in anticipation. Then, slowly, he began to pick and choose the most prime portions to begin with. The people screamed and tried to run but it was futile to hide. They could not defeat the Dragon without mounting an organized campaign and they could not hide forever.

From afar a spider watched in despair. He had lived peacefully with the people and did not wish harm to come to them. In a flash of inspiration Spider knew what to do. He began immediately to embark on building the most monumental web that was ever created. He wove swiftly among the people from Hungary and Norway to Germany then France. He spun a web that attached all the people and nearly expired from all the exertion. Little by little, as Spider's monumental web took shape, the peoples attached to the web began to understand each other once again. For the first time in 10 thousand thousand years all the people from all of the different states within the vast country could communicate effortlessly. As if originating from some deep collective memory, all of the people began to form attack columns and in a short while they had the Dragon surrounded. The spider, finished with his exquisite web, lay teetering on all eight legs from exhaustion.

The first stone became lodged in one of the giant Dragon's eyes, at that moment a flurry of stones barraged the beast. The relentless people continued to stone the Dragon until he did not move.

The heroic spider died of fatigue, but was never forgotten. A banner emblazoned with his silhouette was designed to remind the countrymen that their ability to communicate effectively among disparate groups was also their salvation. To this day the banner of the Spider and his monumental web flies over every city and crossroads across that vast and glorious country.


L.W. Walker
13, September 2001

 

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